THUNDER BAY -- The new chair of the Lakehead Public School Board is hopeful 2015 will bring a quick, peaceful resolution to contract talks with Ontario’s teachers.
Jack Playford is aware there are many different elements affecting how negotiations will proceed between the province and teachers’ unions before it even gets to the board, which is essentially handcuffed for the time being.
“We do know there’s lots of pressure on the government to balance the budget and we don’t know what kind of impact that’s going to have on us,” Playford said.
“That’s an ongoing process on which we don’t have any control, but it impacts us quite profoundly.”
Teachers have been working without a contract since the last ones expired on Aug. 31, 2014
There is still anger over Bill 115, which was imposed by then Premier Dalton McGuinty, which teachers say restricts their ability to strike and limited bargaining rights. Many teachers also lost banked sick days as a result of the terms of the new contract.
Leaders of both the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario and the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation have publicly said they are seeking improvements in the next deal.
Meanwhile, the province has warned the unions to not expect increases as the Liberals struggle to address a climbing deficit. Education Minister Liz Sandals confirmed in November that a total of $500 million could be trimmed from the Ontario education budget by 2017-2018.
In hopes of making the process smoother new legislation has since been introduced to define the roles of the provincial government as funders, school boards as employers and teachers as employees.
The big financial issues, such as salary and benefits, are to be negotiated between the province, teachers’ unions and school board associations.
That leaves other pieces, such as workload and access to technology and training, to be bargained between the unions and individual school boards.
That leaves the individual boards in a state of limbo until the big details are ironed out.
Playford is hopeful the ongoing nature of talks don’t have an impact inside schools.
“We’re only as good as the staff that worked. We want that process to go really well to keep morale up,” Playford said.
That definitely wasn’t the case last time.
About two years ago local members of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario staged a one-day walkout, forcing elementary public schools to close. Those schools were closed a second time due to the threat of a repeated action.
Meanwhile, the city’s public high school teachers adopted a work-to-rule campaign. They did not participate in extra-curricular activities, such as coaching sports, and refused to do extra supervision.
Playford said enrollment projections are showing a slight decrease, though he said that is standard across Ontario.
